Community? OSM2010 Kaido Kikkas © 2010 Kaido Kikkas. This document is dual-licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License (v l.2 or newer) and the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (BY-SA) 3.0 license

Community as defined by a community (Wikipedia - a collection of living things sharing a common environment. Not necessarily humans! Environment:  physical  virtual (more and more common)

... Examples of (human) communities:  a number of people living at the same place (sharing the physical environment)  a number of people doing the same thing (may be physical or virtual)  a number of people having a common feature (may be physical or virtual)

Etymology One explanation:  Latin – com/cum 'with', -munis- 'linked exchange' - -tatus 'small, local' Another:  Latin - com/cum 'with', munus 'gift, present' – a group (e.g. friends) exchanging gifts! For comparison: German terms  Gemeinschaft 'community' vs Gesellschaft 'society' (as outlined by Ferdinand Tönnies 1887). Communities as building blocks of society

Through the ages the Flintstones pursuing a dinosaur the Roman Forum Middle Ages: a village, a guild Modern Age: a firm, a trade union the postmodernism: the cult of the Individual the information age: return of the communities (best seen in but not limited to IT sector)

Three authors to read Robert Theobald  social entrepreneurship  post-scarcity economy  mindquake Charles Handy  return of the guilds Pekka Himanen  hacker ethic  the 'Linus' Law' of motivation

Weakening of traditional communities losing the roots the mishmash of worldviews a man is the... of the fellow man the triumph of individualism consumer mentality

... and the birth of new ones new technologies lots of choice timeless time increasingly unmet need for communication educational aspirations, lifelong learning lots of free time needs for 'something real' sometimes also direct altruism

Various factors of communities size lifespan coverage (local, international, global) mono- or multicultural official or unofficial cooperation vs competition physical, virtual or both

Different adolescents showing off at rate.ee hardcore hackers working on Linux kernel travellers sharing their memories at Flickr.com teachers and lecturers using IVA at TLU Dwarves, Elves and Orcs in various RPGs....

Common grounds belonging certain models of communication network of relations (not hierarchy) support mechanisms

Software development community Started with FLOSS, some proprietary developers have managed to copy it somewhat Strong points:  Lack of 'natural antagonism' of users and developers  Built-in support mechanism  Informal, direct communication  “It's always morning somewhere” – rapid response  Flexible participation, lack of nomenklatura (Dilbert's Principle: “leadership is nature's way of removing morons from the productive flow”)  The Peter Principle applies a little bit less

... Dangers:  forking too easily  cults of personality  excessive perfectionism => falling behind  “swan, pike and crab” – too large and motley community

Josh Berkus: How to Destroy your Community – a pretty smart notes what NOT to do:  make the project depend as much as possible on difficult tools  Encourage the presence of poisonous people and maximize the damage that they can create  Provide no documentation  Project decisions should be made in closed-door meetings  Employ large amounts of legalese  The community liaison must be chosen carefully. The optimal choice is somebody reclusive - somebody who has no friends and really doesn't like people at all. Failing that, go with the busiest person on the staff

...  Governance obfuscation. Keep the decision-making powers unclear (learning from the UN is a good idea)  Screw around with licensing  Do not allow anybody outside the company to have commit access, ever  Silence. Don't answer queries, don't say anything

Degrees Solo project Solo project with community updates Community project with internal updates Full community project

Conclusions the role of community (in its various forms) is increasing technical progress needs a 'social counterweight' many things are the new old ones OTOH, communities  Are not universal cure  Are not perpetuum mobile

Additional reading Rapids of Change and Reworking Success by Robert Theobald Future of Work and Gods of Management by Charles Handy The Wealth of Networks and Coase's Penguin by Yochai Benkler Hacker Ethic by Pekka Himanen

Homework analysis of the Wesnoth community (could be mostly based on the forum) Thoughts about better campaign building in Wesnoth (especially community aspects). Due: Monday, March 1.